reflows

Steve Jobs observed that when people have a vertical screen in front of them, they didn't want to be poking it with their finger all the time. But when users put themselves in laptop mode (who cares what mode the device is in), Apple maintains its' dogma about the identity of an iPad as a touch device. I guess it's a way to do something sensible to respond to the user's needs instead of the company's identity, but without acknowledging that the creed has been broken.

I say it's about time, and when I'm in a spot where I need to use a physical keyboard for actual writing, I'll do my best to think it's a mouse. I'm the one who has an identity and a use case, not the machine I'm using.

Apple is making hardware that's closer and closer to what I'm hoping for - but missing the boat. I am a Mac enthusiast, but the use case for the iPad pro is in conference rooms and meetings. That's where the surface is dominating. In a meeting you need access to a real file system, and when you have the iPad propped up like a monitor, you're in laptop mode and need a mouse or trackpad. (It would be easy to turn my iPhone into a trackpad for that purpose). Steve Jobs was the one who said nobody wants to be reaching up to touch a vertical touch screen, and he was right. Apple is being uncharacteristically ideological, placing the focus on what a touch-based system is "supposed" to do instead of matching the user's needs. When I've got an iPad horizontal I touch it and want to use a pen on it, but when it's facing me vertically with a screen in front, *I'm* in laptop mode and the device should match the use, not some ideologically driven preconception of what touch-based systems should do. If they focused on what I need in a conference room I'll buy it, but everyone else at work is on the Surface now and I may succumb - because it uses a real file system and has a trackpad.

Notice I said "when *I* am in laptop mode. I would like to see the machine adapt to my use, rather than to force me to fit its dogmatic paradigm.